More people on the way home

Here we have Hans...He lives in the North east of Holland (sorry the Nederland!!) We saw him last in Mongolia where he told us that we would pass his house on the way home and that we must stay at least 2 nights.(we haven't told him yet but we have to leave in the morning!!).. so that is where we are now.. doing this blog.. ( we have to do it as Hans says he can"t manage to do any work until there is another blog to read!!) so here we are 4 beers down and trying to do a blog in Holland (sorry the Nederland!!) (sorry Hans)

Jan and his wife Marij [and Timmy the terrier !].Last time we saw Jan was in Kazakstan... again he said that we would pass by his house on the way home and that we should stay at least 2 nights (so we stayed 1). Well after Jan left us he did get to Mongolia but had an accident damaging his sidecar and his good leg (the right leg is made of wood!) so air ambulance etc to Ulan Battar then a flight home.. everything ok now... next years trip being planned at the moment. What a lovely stay we had......and first waterbed ever.Thank you Jan and Marij.....[the eggs were delicious]

Those of you who have been following the blog will remember Niels and Hanna.. They invited us to stay too.... so we had a wonderful evening hearing some of their tales of their past travel. [The charging moose story is very good...especially Hanna's laughing at the sight of Niels running for his life !]... we will have to stay with them in the future to hear more... Great stories and great people

DIY ferry in Holland ( sorry the Nederland) wind the ferry across and back.. at least it kept us warm.

And now the start of our Holiday.... 27500km then a weeks cycle touring round Holland (sorry the Nederland) with Gary and Jane.[the titanium twins] . We don't know who is the madder, them for coming out at this time of the year with this type of weather to go cycle touring..... or us for not taking the ferry that they got off to go home.?.... You decide... anyway we are having a great time.

Germany in the autumn.

On our way through Germany we remembered that we actually had some friends!! Yes even living in Germany.... so here you have it, Mike and Julia with Jon on a little walk through the woods around Heidelberg. They looked after us very well ,feeding us up, showing us all of the best sights in the area and educating us on the measuring of the distance from the earth to the stars ( heavy stuff).Michael took us on a "gentle 10km " bike ride.It took 37km's to complete and included an obligatory 33min time trial up Heidelberg's biggest hill. We also had some of the best weather..... sunny and hot.

Catching the last of the Autumnal sun on the banks of the Rhine

Jon seems to have got an obsession with his boots... he spends hours and hours gluing them together.,cutting old inner tubes up to make patches... and now after buying some polish in Lidl, he is changing the colour from brown to black!!!It is not necessarily an improvement.

As you can see the weather stayed as sunny and hot... Here Nic is enjoying an Ice cream again on the Rhine.

What a great surprise... Andrew came out to meet us in Dusseldorf.. we had a night in a hostel.. a bit of wine.. then a walk around the city.. We then went our separate ways, Andrew North and us West.

Krakow to Brno

Some of these cycle path markers can be a bit confusing! Where to go next? Its made worse by the fact that we dont have any maps of the cycleways.... so we dont know which one to use, or sometimes which one we have been on,or where we are ???? What a pain it can be.. (Nic says I must not rant!!!).Sometimes going round in circles is vaguely amusing.....

How are you supposed to ride up this? Craig???

Uuum. Obviously there is no point in getting up too early . It is much more sensible to get your coffee made for you and then stay inside your warm sleeping bag,at least until it gets light.

Having the tarp has made camping in the forests on wet nights relatively O.K....

Hooray.!! Petr and Simona welcomed us into their lovely home in Brno, a great place to live. Of course we got maps,[and a marked route to follow from Petr ],as well as food ,beers and bed.Luxury.....and great to see Petr again after too many years !

Petr said we would get sunny spells. This is it.[the only spell in 4 days ]. You have to make the most of them.........

Brno Czech to Hiedelberg

Jon and petrol..... pyrotechnics at its best.. every morning Nic gets the sound... whumph... then the whole of the tent is lit up by the flame from the stove.
Jon thinks its fun!! Nic is still asleep.

Look at that!! even after a year or so just cycling nic is still supple enough to swing her leg over the bike.. amazing... and at her age!!

The fruit pickers dream. Along all of the roads or tracks, the apple trees are full of ripe fruit. Fill your bags with lovely apples, plums, pears or sweet chestnuts. Its wonderful

Early morning mist.

The days have been bright and blue recently, but the mornings can be quite cold, especially down by the river. So all the clothes on in the morning, then off in the afternoon. (well not all of the clothes off!!)

Beautiful forest trails by the side of the Nekar river.